Chapter 1: What was the cultural significance of Studio 54?
Hello. Hello. Hello in disco. I don't know what that is. Me either. Nope, my brain's let me down. Thanks, brain. Fuck. Okay. If you are ever in New York City and you have done all of the Times Square and Saks Fifth Avenue that you can handle, you can take the subway or the bus if you must.
to 57th Street and 7th Avenue Station, and you will be a block and a half from a whole other kind of history. 254 West 54th Street is now home to the Cabaret Club, Comedy Club, blah, blah, blah, 54 Below, which is a great name. It is now a comedy cabaret club, but if those walls could talk, you would need to be hosed down. Every orifice would need to be sprayed.
Because that building was once the most culturally impactful nightclub of all time. The totality of the disco era. Studio 54. The plot is haunted by the ghosts of the most beautiful, glamorous, desperately cool fashionistas of the 70s. And if you listen hard enough, you can still hear the four on-the-floor bass lines of yore. Okay, brain, thank you for that one. I take it back.
When it comes to cool, Studio 54 has never been beaten. No bar, no club, no theatre, no cabaret, no flash mob, no art installation, no nothing has ever come close. And I really think when you are trying to come up with a concept, everyone wants it to be cool. But if you're running nightclubs, you need cool more than anything else. And Studio 54 did it better.
Deep in the theatre district, 254 West 54th Street, started its life as the Gallo Opera House. In 1930, it was transformed into the New York Theatre, and very briefly, a nightclub. And then, back to a theatre again. Until 1942, when it was snapped up by CBS.
The TV network made the old opera house the set of network big hitters, like The Johnny Carson Show, for decades, all the way up until 1972, when the soundstage fell silent for the first time. And when it did, hoteliers Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager were waiting in the wings. This dynamic entrepreneur duo met at the University of Syracuse.
They did everything together, including opening nightclubs. But Steve and Ian knew that they hadn't come close to realising their full potential yet.
The 70s was a magical time, not just because of all the CIA-funded hallucinogens floating around, because of loads of other stuff as well. I'd never actually thought about it in this succinct way. The 70s is bang in the middle between the invention and wide circulation of the contraceptive pill and the AIDS crisis on the other side. So there is a solid bit where you could just fuck.
No consequence. And we're never going to get it back. It was the only time where living fast and loose... or at least weigh less consequence than it previously had. For the first and last time in human history, pregnancy was no longer a threat to the female experience, and no one could even conceive of the so-called gay cancer that was just around the corner.
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Chapter 2: Who were the founders of Studio 54 and what was their vision?
The queue was enormous every night, from bankers to street performers, all desperate to get in, like the damned looking into paradise. That's not mine, I stole it from the documentary, but it's a good way of describing it. Inside Studio 54, everyone was a star. Not just a person. Provided you could actually get in.
Like any hyped nightclub, the studio's door policy was as mysterious as it was strict. Famously called a dictatorship at the door and a democracy on the dance floor. There's lots of interview footage of Steve Rubell going on talk shows and talking about... The key is to keep it secret, like Berghain. You're never going to tell anyone what the thing is. Keep everyone guessing.
But they were like, what we really didn't want is polyester shirts. So we would say that they melted under the lights and that's why you couldn't come in if you were wearing one. But obviously it just cancels out an entire group of lower income people. If you were lucky enough to get past the doorman, who was not only good looking, he was paid more than anyone else, so he wouldn't take bribes.
People still tried. People just like shoving cocaine in his pocket. But he's like, he's the king of the door. And if you made it past him, his name's Steve Benecke, I think, the last days of Rome were waiting for you on the inside. Steve Rubell would walk through his club wearing a massive coat filled with cash and drugs that he would hand out to anyone he liked the look on.
The basement was full of mattresses populated by anonymous sex and competitions in which a trip to St Bart's was awarded to the patron who could do the most disgusting thing for the longest or farthest.
But to keep the hype moving was no easy job. To create a fever dream of splendour and excess is one thing, but to keep that ball rolling is something else altogether. Management would regularly drop $100,000 in decorations for a single night, changing themes regularly. The mechanical bridge that moved back and forth, covered with naked people, provided another trippy edge. It was so, like...
We also have to remember this is the age of the Quaalude. But I think if you even managed to make it through a night at Studio 54 ingesting no drugs, it would be quite difficult for you to tell the difference because it is so mad.
And also remember that at this time, no photographs were actually allowed inside the club, adding to the mystique. Apart from snaps that were, of course, taken by the studio's own photographer, who caught absolutely iconic shots filled with the brightest and best, including Andy Warhol.
Liza Minnelli, Cher, Jack Nicholson, Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, Truman Capote, Divine, Bob Fosse, Rick James, Elton John, Calvin Klein, Karl Lagerfeld, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Grace Jones, Donna Summer, James Brown, Gloria Gaynor. So yes, the very bisexual list goes on and on and on.
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Chapter 3: How did Studio 54 redefine nightlife in New York City?
Punk, hip-hop, pop art all came out of New York at this time. It was exciting. It was an exciting place to be, exciting city to live in, full of artists. And Studio 54 put them all in the same room, dancing on the same mechanical stage.
On top of being the coolest place on the planet, Ian and Steve were making money hand over fist. And naturally, everyone hated them for it. The evil eye loomed large over Studio 54. After a while, everyone started to have it in for Steve and Ian.
Pride before a fall, too close to the sun. Yeah. How many more have you got?
Yeah. And the dynamic duo really didn't help themselves by being the poster boys for everything that was wrong with the economy. Steve told New York Magazine that, quote, only the mafia does better than Studio 54. Shut up, Steve. Yeah, because that gave the IRS the key that they had been waiting for. The studio was raided in December 1978.
The books were seized, along with a secret set of actual books kept in the ceiling and a whole load of quaaludes Steve had been saving for a rainy day. And also, just like $600,000 had been lying around in bin bags...
In the secret books that literally they are hiding in the ceiling. When they're taking cash out for themselves, they skim about two million. They write skim in the ledger.
Brilliant.
I saw an interview with the IRS agent and he was like, if you're going to skim, skim a couple of hundred here and there.
And don't write it down. That's the point of skimming.
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